#IStandWithParis
At 9:20 PM local time on Friday November 13th, Daesh launched a series of co-ordinated shooting and bombings that killed 130 people in and around Paris. Shortly after, Facebook activated its Safety Check feature to let people tell their loved ones they’re safe. The site had first activated the feature after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. But this was the first time it had done so for a terror attack. In the next three days, hashtag ‘pray for Paris’ was tweeted nearly 10 million times. And as social media sites allowed users to express their solidarity with France, empathy and support for the victims of the terror attacks poured in. ...But, as with many things on the Internet, what soon followed was backlash.
#PrayFortheWorld
There were others who questioned why no-one was talking about Beirut, when double bombings had struck the city just a day before Paris… Others asked why Facebook hadn’t offered a profile picture flag filter for Syria, Palestine, Kenya, Nigeria or other countries...like it did for France. And then there’s Turkey, which has nearly twice as more registered Facebook users than France. But the social networking site didn’t offer a Safety Check or flag filter when Daesh killed 102 people in Ankara just over a month ago. It caused many people to wonder why the world was ‘hashtag’ ‘standing with Paris’ and not with other cities and towns that have been exposed to terror attacks - a total of nearly 300 this year alone. And many Muslims felt they were being blamed for Daesh terrorism. Many people put up posts on social media that accused “mainstream media” of failing to report on terror attacks in other countries…
Will the reaction last?
But Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are social media sites- not traditional news outlets- they decide what to show users based on their friends’ subscriptions and what they’ve previously ‘liked.’ Bilal Eren, a social media expert and lecturer at Marmara University in Istanbul believes that there is a reason these sites don’t respond strongly to terror attacks like the one in Ankara… Just five days after the attack in Paris, Facebook decided to activate its Safety Check feature following a bombing that killed 32 people in the city of Yola in Nigeria. Many people have speculated that it was in response to users’ criticism after the Paris attacks...But they hope it’s had a lasting effect.
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Youtube: [ Ссылка ]
GooglePlus: [ Ссылка ]
